Of course they were giving special treatment to one of their own. It is too bad they refuse to give the same treatment to others. Lives would probably be saved. That won't change the double standard, though. It will continue. (I seriously doubt the NY Times would have consented to a black-out on the Pearl kidnapping if it were asked to do so.)

I fully agree with PatCA and Darcy. If it had been anybody other than a Times reporter would the news media have sat on the story in hopes of getting him back alive? Their track record suggest otherwise.

Whether a political kidnapping becomes a murder is entirely dependent on the utility of the captive to the barbarians who took him.

They don't give a shit what we say about it, whether it is public or not. They want money or politcal leverage or both. Nothing more or less. That David Rohde survived long enough to escape says more wbout his usefulness than it does about our reporting.

Editorials, pleas from the papers, cries that 'the world is watching' .... worthless.

Do we pay the Danegeld or not?Do we kill the kidnappers or not?These are the only true questions.

Maybe I'm just a rube, but I don't see why these are such tough decisions. I would have no problem deciding to do what is best for the captive or his family. What exactly is the other side of that equation? Getting out the story so you have more journalistic cred or get more advertising money? Does that even work on such a story? I'm not sure what the higher principle above saving innocent life is here. What am I missing?

@bagoh20, there's no reporter alive who wouldn't sell his grandmother into slavery if he could get a front page byline.

Courses in "journalistic ethics" in modern universities are worse than underwater basketweaving. In a class on underwater basketweaving you still have to make a basket, whereas the syllabus for the ethics class in J-school is a single sheet of paper that is blank on both sides.

I don't think the responses of the involved news organizations are the keys to the different outcomes. From the article:

"When Monitor reporter Jill Carroll was abducted in Baghdad in 2006, her editors and family sparked what became intensive international coverage until she was released nearly three months later.

When Fox News's Steve Centanni and a cameraman were seized by Palestinian gunmen in the Gaza Strip that year, Fox broadcast a tape from Centanni's brother pleading for his release. Both men were let go two weeks later.

When Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl was kidnapped in Pakistan in 2002, the paper's editor appealed for his release and made public an e-mail he sent to an address said to be used by the kidnappers. Confirmation of Pearl's murder came less than a month later.

Sometimes news involving journalists is reported in low-key fashion. After North Korea arrested two Current TV reporters, Laura Ling and Euna Lee, on spying charges March 17, the television station, co-founded by Al Gore, said little publicly, and media coverage was sparse. The women were sentenced to 12 years of hard labor June 7."

What "classified information" did the NYT reveal that has resulted in a loss of American life or compromised national security? I'd like to know.

This is the same NYT that allowed the Bush administration to launch a war based on false pretenses of WMD. This is the same NYT that employed Judy Miller, who went to fucking jail to protect the Bush admin.

But really, tell me what classified information they released that has destroyed America. Please.

Courses in "journalistic ethics" in modern universities are worse than underwater basketweaving. In a class on underwater basketweaving you still have to make a basket, whereas the syllabus for the ethics class in J-school is a single sheet of paper that is blank on both sides.

Having taken this course and been an aide to a professor who taught this course, I can tell you that you are 100% wrong. Of course, you haven't ever enrolled in such a course, so no one really expects you to be telling the truth or to be posting an ethical comment. Irony. Heh.

LOL, Zachary. I'm not rising to that bait. If you don't understand the risk to American lives by what the NYT revealed during the Bush administration years, I don't think anything I can say can change your mind. And the loss of life as a result of their disclosures is hard to quantify, but very easy to assume. And I do. Assume it.

Seymour Hersh did not discover the abuses at Abu Ghraib prison. He revealed the Army's investigation of the abuses that the Army had discovered at AG. It is safe to say that the pictures that were subsequently publicized by his reporting inspired a fair number of suicide bombers. There are American soldiers and Iraqi civilians who are dead because of the public's right to see pictures of the abuse. The Army investigation ended the abuse, not Seymour Hersh.....Perhaps the public has as much of a sacred right to know that the Taliban kidnap reporters as that Americans mistreat prisoners. In any event the Times feels that facts that endanger the lives of their reporters are more worthy of discretion than the facts that endanger the lives of American soldiers....You can parse this all you want, but the Times looks bad in this comparison.

Sexy Darcy, I'd rather a media outlet report news to maintain and preserve our democracy than cover shit up. This is not to say that the NYT wasn't ideologically motivated in releasing whatever information you are thinking of, because they probably were, but just because their actions might bolster their political agenda doesn't mean what they released was not objectively important.

If the NYT had called Bush a liar and somehow exposed all of Bush's evil machinations then we wouldn't have had a war?

In my opinion, the NYT did a horrible job in investigating the Bush admin's claims of WMD. Perhaps 'horrible' is too soft a word. They did no investigating at all, actually. They allowed the claim to go unchecked, which was the key reason given for the invasion. Had they come out during the run-up and said there are no WMD, there are no weapons programs, Bush is lying/wrong, things might have been different. Or maybe not. Either way, they are a joke and I'm glad they are dying now, along with all the other dinosaur papers that have no idea what they're doing.

I'd say about 99% of reporting is done with some sort of bias. Just acknowledge and accept that it is and then judge the facts for themselves. I don't think there's anything wrong with being an ideological reporter so long as you present the facts.

Then there was the release of the info that we were tracking terrorists by their cell phones. Result was that the terrorists started using one-time cell phones so we could not track where they were. Then there was the release of the info that we were tracking the money trail that was used to buy stuff for bombs through the SWIFT messaging system with the support of the Belgian government. Result was that the terrorists changed the way the sent money to buy bomb materials resulting in more deaths of our soldiers. Add to that the failure to publicize the killings by the terrorists of not just the reporters but also the westerners who had married Iraqis and were active in the community by helping the schools and the neighbors to a better life. I remember one British woman who had been married to an Iraqi Muslim for close to 30 years and helped found schools, food banks, charities for the Muslim neighbors and she was stabbed and strangled with her body left in the street. The NYT wrote a total of 1 story about that and then dropped it. When it came to portraying the troops as evil incarnate they were first in line with repeat story after repeat story. Good to know who our friends are. The NYT journalists are not our friends.

I'll catch up on the comments later -- I just finished reading the NY Times story off the Drudge link. Interesting to find Prof. Althouse linked to it.

Very first thing which came to my mind was how DIFFERENTLY the NY Times (AND other news sources) treated the life of its reporter, compared to lives endangered by the irresponsible revelations of classified information.

"I'd say about 99% of reporting is done with some sort of bias. Just acknowledge and accept that it is and then judge the facts for themselves. I don't think there's anything wrong with being an ideological reporter so long as you present the facts."

That's awfully convenient that a liberal wants everyone to "just move along...nothing to see here" when we're talking about libereal bias. We should just "judge the facts" for ourselves, except that media bias is every bit as much about what it doesn't report as what it does.

For example, where are the NYT crack reporters on the Walpin firing? It reeks of corruption, and the cover-up quite possibly reaches into the White House.

What about the possible cronyism in large Democratic donors getting a pass when Obama decided which dealerships to close?

We're only a little over 5 months into the Obama administration, and there has been ample opportunity for the press to "present the facts and let the public decide." But the public can't decide if the press won't do its job. There was a time when that sort of thing mattered to reporters...too bad that time was only during Republican administrations.

Don't tell me that you believe that you believe that the press should present the facts because you believe no such thing. You believe that the press should present such facts as are convenient to your politics and ignore those that aren't.

Went to Harvard Square last night for dindin. Went to Henrietta's Table-fab. Harvard Square is gross. Tourists everywhere, yuck.

Tonight North End for Italian, food that is. Will be either going to Sage or Giacamos. Mikes Pastry for dessert.

One of the rare clumbers is having serious back problems. She needs to lose weight. I feel like a bad parent. I am at fault for her being overweight. I cried all last night while laying on the floor with her. She is only 5 years old. I promise not to feed her any more treats. She is so good and beautiful and special.

"Then how do you explain Jews consistently voting for the "left"? One of the Democrats most reliable voting blocs. Jews like to associate and give money to anti-semites?"

Evidently you were absent or mentally MIA for the discussion we just had about the Democratic Party and the gay community or else you wouldn't ask so ludicrous a question about why any number of special interest groups vote for the Democratic Party.

It wasn't like it was Republicans kissing Mrs. Arafat or anything, was it? Or maybe it's not without debate that religious fundamentalists are the staunchest supporters of Israel in this country (behind Jews, of course). Could it be that they (and their leaders) put aside their religion for their Leftist politics?

Gosh. It's almost like someone should invent a phrase something along the lines of "politics makes strange bedfellows" to describe the perverse alliance of anti-Semites and Jews or something.

That's awfully convenient that a liberal wants everyone to "just move along...nothing to see here" when we're talking about libereal bias. We should just "judge the facts" for ourselves, except that media bias is every bit as much about what it doesn't report as what it does.

Spare me. There are plenty of places to get news. If you don't like getting it from the NYT or other liberal outlets, get it somewhere else. And you obviously do get your news elsewhere as you seem informed about issues that aren't being reported on by the Times. So, seems as you've got no dog in this fight.

ZPS - I think that would be a valid argument if everyone were apt to seek out various news sources on every story. As it is, the media at large has a hand in shaping public opinion and awareness for the majority who swallow their news whole. I would think that along with that, they have a responsibility to maintain objectivity. Would you disagree?

Imagine, Zach, if almost every mainstream news outlet simply ignored every gay issue. Just ignored them, as if they didn't exist. Imagine trying to fight for gay marriage if every protest were made fun of, or even worse, simply not reported on.

That's just about how it feels: stories that many of us feel are vitally important are ignored on a regular basis.

"Darcy said... Pogo and Robin make great points. The idea that the NYT thought they were helping by staying silent and asking for cooperation with regard to that still reveals them as hypocrites. And probably worse..."

Oh, to have been a fly on the wall during the NYTimes hostage negotiation for their reporter.

"Look, we gave you info on the Afghan Predator program, America tapping into SPRINT to find Islamoid financiers. We regularly give page 1 to any "wedding party atrocity" you alledge. We helped kill hundreds of American soldiers by working hard to inflame Muslims with endless stories of Abu Ghraib, GITMO torture, Haditha, Koran desecration..Details on jammer devices the military was trying against IEDs. Endless advocacy of terrorist's precious rights and civil liberties."

So you admit that you like the NYT's bias because it supports your politics. You don't really believe that reporters should report facts so that the public can decide: everything you said before was a complete lie.

You believe that the NYT should cover the stories you want covered and bury the stories you don't want covered.

You shouldn't have tried lying about it in the first place: it's not like anyone believed you really meant what you said anyway.

To be perfectly fair and consistent his answer would be that it would be perfectly reasonable that gay issues were only covered by The Advocate and LOGO.

It is completely reasonable that gay issues were only covered by network news to the extent of making fun of gays by stereotyping them all by only showing the most outrageous examples from the latest gay pride parade. He also thinks there would be no problem if newspapers only employed anti-gay bigots who pretended to speak for gays by telling gays that they should be more like heterosexuals.

Never mind that the majority of the country would have a distorted opinion of gays: the gays have the LOGO Channel and The Advocate to get their point of view across.

Because that's the kind of fairness that Zach believes in. What's the problem?

Considering the question of what to *do* when someone is taken... I think it depends on who takes them.

What is supposed to be gained by *not* publicizing the incarceration of the journalists in North Korea? I think that all the noise about the woman arrested in Iran probably helped lead to her release. When it's the Taliban or someone like that who can only *win* by showing the world their power to abduct and murder and get it on the front page of newspapers and televisions around the world, obviously the right thing to do is deny them that media and propaganda function.

I am disgusted by media that claims not to have a "side". The "side" of the NYT in this case was the well being of their own reporter. All of the times that news services reported news that had no value except to further the media and propaganda interests of the Taliban or Al Qaida or whomever, those reporting the "news" should have been asking themselves the same questions as they asked when it involved their own.

They should have asked... is this important news, or is it just a good story; is this important for people to know, or is it an attention getter; is making this public going to involve a butcher's price, and is it a butcher's price that *must* be paid?

We can know that encouragement by media resulted in more deaths of US troops and Iraqi civilians, but we can't prove it. I don't think anyone could possibly dispute, however, that at least one instance of journalistic malpractice resulted in the deaths of human beings... and that was Newsweek's false report of flushing a Koran. The fact that it was a lie is almost irrelevant. Even if it were possible to get a book down the loo it's hard to see how this would be "news" and the sort of mindset that feels no responsibility for the consequences of the decision to act as if it *was* news, can not be admired.

I wish it were a matter of journalists just being immature. It's not immaturity: it's actual malice.

They knew by publishing certain of the stories that they have over the last 6 years that they were placing American lives in danger: they didn't care.

The Left has always been hostile to the military, so if it cost a few more military folks their lives it's just collateral damage. After all, it was just more dead bodies that they could blame on Bushitler.

The same with their coverage of conservatives in general. They intentionally seek out bad photographs to accompany the articles. They know that the slanders being fed to them by the Democratic Party aren't true. They know they're only highlighting extreme views or stories that don't represent mainstream conservatism.

They know all of this, and they pride themselves on doing it. They get together at their Manhattan condo parties and titter over their own supposed cleverness. All the while, their house of cards is falling down around them.

Barring some sort of government intervention, it is very likely that the NYT will not be printing newspapers after the 2012 election. Already liberal rags like the Seattle Post-Intelligencer have fallen by the wayside. CNN and MSNBC combined get fewer viewers than Fox while the alphabet networks continue setting records for fewest viewers ever.

And then will we hear the gnashing of teeth and wails from the Left because they are no longer sole arbiters of what constitutes news, that their viewpoints aren't being sufficiently heard, and that their voice is just one of many rather than the dominant one that they have always relied upon.

Much like their selective outrage at the Bush administration which is no longer operable when Obama continues the exact same policy, their complaints then will put the lie to their current claims of indifference to media bias. They will claim that they were always for both sides of a story being told. They always wanted every voice to be heard: not just the one that advances the interests of a political party. And as with the Reagan era, they will claim that these are not newfound beliefs but that they have consistently fought for these things all along.

The pure Orwellian nature of the Left is entirely predictable. For people who claim a monopoly on independent thought, they show an amazing lack of capacity for self-critique and intellectual growth. As surely as we know that the sun will rise tomorrow, we also know what direction their groupthink will take in the future.

They have always been at war with Eurasia you see, because they have never been at war with Eurasia. Why do you have to make it so complicated?

As news papers are failing and the 24 hour "news" cycle gets consumed by celebrity scandals and glamorous murders and murderers, do you know what I see? Informative television programming is booming.

Sure, some of it is silly "pet psychic" programming but History programming and channels that run science or "learning" and those sorts of things are booming. People want to *know* about stuff, and they don't want the five minute (or second!) sound bite.

And I'll never forget that General trying to get information out on emergency plans the next hurricane after Katrina. People needed to KNOW what to do, but the reporters wouldn't listen and wouldn't ask for the information that people needed, truly needed, to know.

She had two busted knees and hips. And would no longer be able to walk. If she was a smaller dog I could pick her up and get her outside but because of her size I am unable to move her.

I am devastated.

I have her collar.

She is dead.

She got me through so many horrible times. I got up in the morning when there was a time I never wanted to get up in the morning and face the world.

She was waiting for me when I returned home with a wiggling but and smile on her face.

My house seems so quite without her. The other clumber is looking for her, seems lost and disoriented without her.

My neighbors and I loaded her in my car as poop and urine was running from her body.

She was crying the entire car ride to the Vet.

The vet told me she was morbidly obese and her back hips and knees could not hold the weight.

The surgery would of been $3000-4000 for each knee and 4000-5000 for each hip. I did not have this kind of money. Just to take her to urgent care cost 2000 for all the tests and the orthopaedic visit, regular vet visit.

I failed. I fed her too much. I caused her death. I feel awful.

I can't stop crying. She was such an amazing dog. So happy, so good, never did anything wrong, was nice to everyone she met. She was my best friend. She went everywhere with me.

I can't disagree with most of what you wrote. I would ask how self-importance fits into stories like Edwards paying for his mistress with campaign funds, Monica Lewinsky, Obama's tampering with multiple Inspectors General and the like support that thesis.

If it were about self-importance, then why wouldn't an enterprising reporter seeking to become the next Woodward or Bernstein eagerly dig their teeth into the slightest hint of scandal by a Democrat rather than having to be dragged kicking and screaming to the story after it becomes too big to ignore. They have no problem doing so when a Republican is involved - to the point of making up a John McCain affair out of whole cloth during the campaign. So it's not even that they value the integrity of the story: even when it's provably false they have no problem running it.

The latest example is the poll they just published claiming to show overwhelming support for Obamacare. Their sample included Obama voters over McCain voters by a margin of 2-to-1 when the actual truth is that it's barely higher than 1-to-1. When corrected for their sampling "error," the actual levels of support for Obamacare at 40% or less. They knew that, but chose to lie anyway. I don't see any way to account for this sort of base dishonesty as anything other than the malice of forethought.

It wasn't an honest mistake: no pollster could seriously make the claim that he would make a "mistake" of that kind of magnitude. It just isn't possible. It wasn't just selecting a story which reflected their bias: if they didn't like what an accurate sample showed, they could have just spiked the story all together. Instead they chose to blatantly lie.

Maybe I'm misunderstand what you mean - a collective "self-importance" so that the Democratic Party perpetually "owes them one" in the favor department vs. an individual sense of self-importance perhaps?

I am so sorry for your loss. Everyone who has ever owned a dog (I own two at the moment, but have never NOT owned a dog in my life.) understands the loss you're feeling right now.

Don't blame yourself. What you did, you did out of love. I'm sure she passed on feeling loved by you. It is quite evident from your post that you did everything in your power to save her at the end, and I doubt very much that she didn't feel that from you.

I won't tell you not to mourn, because the loss of such a companion is a profound pain which no one should try to deny.

Hopefully you are comforted knowing that where is now her knees no longer hurt, she can run and play to her heart's content, she will never tire, and she will know forver that she was loved unconditionally. I believe that with all my heart, and I can only hope that she has found great company within the pack of the canine friends that we have all lost over the years before we were ready to let them go.

They will all be there to greet us with wagging tails and bountiful kisses when it is our time to join them. It's never really goodbye. It's just: see you later.

Jim, I'm thinking of an institutional self-importance. It's the part that can actually view recording someone's death as more important than saving their life. It's the place where a "reporter" can get an award for getting a "tip" that an assassination is going to happen and instead of telling the police or US military or Iraqi Army, makes sure to have a camera on hand to take the iconic photo.

In the world but not of it.

A religious concept.

A religious concept that makes conversations such as the one with... was it Wallace and Jennings? Someone, Wallace I think for sure... where they out and out *asked* them what they'd do if they had information that our soldiers were walking into an ambush. (This was pre-Bush, pre-Iraq, I could probably google a You-Tube video.) And it's the thing that allowed them to actually *answer* in public, recorded, on television for the world to see, to answer and say that being a JOURNALIST meant that they had to stay uninvolved and *not* warn anyone.

It's the sort of institutional self-importance that lets journalists and photographers and reporters feel that they have as much right to battle-field protection, if not *more*, than medical personnel and ambulances.

This is not to say that the NYT wasn't ideologically motivated in releasing whatever information you are thinking of, because they probably were, but just because their actions might bolster their political agenda doesn't mean what they released was not objectively important.

Revealing a completely non-invasive program to track the money of terrorists was "objectively important"...how?

Danny Pearl must have been additionally doomed by being Jewish. I don't know Rohde's tribe though the name sounds kinda Norwegian.

Frankly, isn't this by far the most salient difference? That's the first thing that popped into my mind -- that "what the NYT did completely differently from the Wall Street Journal" must have been "not send Jewish reporters into countries full of violent anti-Semitic extremists?"